


Fight for it

by LMX



Category: Rise of the Demigods (Podcast)
Genre: Canon Trans Character, Gen, Major Character Injury, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-03
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-06 02:08:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25695553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LMX/pseuds/LMX
Summary: There are very few things in Teo's life he hasn't had to fight for





	Fight for it

**Author's Note:**

> So, interesting thing - sometimes your writing brain just switches off for two years, and then you get introduced to something new and... well, I'm rusty, so apologies if this isn't great. New fandom, who dis?

There's a moment, ever so briefly clear headed and in a transient moment between pain, that Teodor looks at what remains of his right arm, his sword arm, and thinks: 'I have just lost of only part of me that I did not have to fight to make real'.

Through the drugs soothing the pain of broken bone, of bruised flesh, of what was and now was not, and of more than a lifetime's worth of loss, he considers that the thought is funny: 'Being a soldier is the only thing in my life I didn't have to fight for' - but the laughter brings the pain back, and he'd never been comfortable with his laugh anyway, and he's dissolving around the edges.

~

Being a young gnome in a human garrison was a strange dichotomy. Everyone around you questioned why you grew so slowly, why you learned so slowly, why you still clung to your parents when those around you were finding husbands and wives and careers and taking their place among the adults. And at the same time he watched them treat his parents as if their small stature made them children in their eyes.

'No, I don't need you to hand me that, the step is right there, I can reach it for myself, and for all the Gods' sake, stop trying to recruit my son to the guard - he's still a CHILD!'

But child or not, Teo was strong and capable, and he'd committed more hours to his training than any other cadet could. They'd had to stop his advancement as there were simply no more ranks for him to advance, and he'd graciously agreed to step into a mentoring role once it became apparent that they'd run out of training for him. When it came time for another group of cadets to graduate into the guard, Teo had sat his parents down and laid out all his skills, all the reasons this would be alright, all the reasons he could be *so good* at this. They had conceded without a fight.

And Teo was good. Almost good enough to be treated like an adult. Almost.

~

When his wounds start to heal, and he is allowed to sit and then stand - lopsided and weak, still splinted and bandaged - Teo considers his situation. He is now the only gnome here, and while he would really like to sob and scream like the bereaved child he truly is (and he can feel that hot thrashing in his chest, begging to be let free) what he must do now is prove that he is an adult.

He is a burden right now, orphaned and without carers, and if they realise that and decide they must relocate him to be with his kin...

No. He belongs here.

His whole life, being a soldier was the only thing he hadn't had to fight for. He looks now at the end of his bed, where some kind soul has cleaned his sword, and set it alongside his father's shield - perhaps mistaking the shield for his own, which surely lies in splinters on the battlefield. Well, all that means is that it's time to start fighting for that too.

He pushes down sorrow and self-pity until it is a tiny ball, and sinks it with the heat of tears deep into the core of him, letting it solidify into something hard like diamond. Leaning out of the door to his room, he asks in his most level and polite tone for someone to bring him his tinker's kit.

Time to fight.


End file.
